(Jewish Group) Which European countries are best for Jews? A new study offers unexpected answers.

[Behind the Aegis]

Antisemitic sentiment is especially prevalent in Italy and Hungary, according to multiple surveys. But a first-of-its-kind index combining different measures of Jewish experience found that they are also the best countries in Europe for Jews to live in.

The index, unveiled Monday, is based on a study that combines polling data and policy information to create a single quality-of-life metric for Jews in the 12 European Union countries with sizable Jewish communities, according to Daniel Staetsky, a statistician with the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research who wrote the report for the European Jewish Association in Brussels.

“The goal with this report is to take the excellent data we already have about how Jews feel, about how prevalent antisemitism is, and combine it with government policy measurables,” Staetsky said during a conference held by the European Jewish Association in Budapest.

He said the results may challenge preconceptions about which EU countries are most hospitable to Jews. For example, Germany scored high when it came to government policies relating to Jews. But Jews there report a weak sense of security, leading to an overall middling score.

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[comradebillyboy]

1. A very interesting article. I wasn't surprised to see

France and Poland near the bottom of the list but I was surprised to see the UK so high.

[hedda_foil]

2. And in 1931, Germany was a great place for Jews.

[Behind the Aegis]

3. For Gays too....even gay Jews.

In 1919, Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935), sexologist and sexual-reformer, saw a long-cherished dream come true: on July 6, he opened the “Institute for Sexual Science” in Berlin-Tiergarten – the first of its kind in the world. Politically, the Institute’s emergence is to be viewed within the context of the progressive reform movements during the Weimar period; scientificially, the bio-medical explanations of human sexuality at the time formed the framework. The Institute’s foundation was the first attempt at establishing sexual science.

The Institute soon became a sought-after address for local and foreign scientists, academics and politicians. For Berlin residents, it became known as an institution providing counselling and treatment for “physical and psychological sexual disorders” as well as, in particular, for “sexual transitions”, Hirschfeld’s term for homosexuals, transvestites and hermaphrodites. Many a writer paid the Institute a visit – Christopher Isherwood and Alfred Döblin, for example, incorporated their impressions into their literary works.

More than 40 people worked at the Institute in many different fields: research, sexual counselling, treatment of venereal diseases and public sex education. The Institute housed the main offices of both the Scientific Humanitarian Committee – the first homosexual organisation – and the World League for Sexual Reform.

From the outset, the Institute was defamed and denounced as “Jewish”, “Social-Democratic” and “offensive for public morals”. It was plundered and shut down by the Nazis in 1933. In exile, Magnus Hirschfeld witnessed in a Parisian cinema the burning of his works on Berlin’s Opera Square by Fascist students. Following an unsuccessful attempt to set up an institute for sexual science in Paris, Hirschfeld died in Nice, France, on May 14, 1935, his birthday. The Institute’s buildings in Berlin were destroyed by bombing in 1943. Since then, the site has been overgrown with gras.
https://magnus-hirschfeld.de/ausstellungen/institute/

icymist

Berlin had one of the most progressive gay and lesbian scenes in the world. It went to shit real fast. Frankly, some of the news I am seeing coming out of our country makes me fear the worst.